All Forum Posts by: Elizabeth Maloney

I wish I knew how to make cleaning more cheaply for them. As I said, the only mess really left behind were the items I was unable to fit out on the curb due to the storm.

Now I can guarantee the cats did little to dirty the carpet. I'm big on keeping that clean I have never found an accident outside their litter boxes. Rare occasion brought a hairball on the carpet, which I immediately cleaned and scrubbed till I couldn't tell it was there (stains and smell drive me insane). I'm not guaranteeing that those who haven't lived with cats wouldn't notice. My main issue on the pet deodorizing costs was, why did my landlord tell me that's what the monthly fee was for when its not?

Edit: And I should say I checked for accidents daily. I come from a family of pet owners who do their best to keep the house and carpet clean from the buggers. And when I say rare hairballs, I mean that they most often went to the kitchen tile or cement basement floor to toss up the vast majority, occasionally its a miss and ends up on the carpet. I'm not saying its perfect, but I did do my best. For guests coming over a lone, I tried to vacuum 2-3 times a week with a nice coating of fabreeze as my own maintenance. So I don't want to be pegged as a trasher. I really did try.

Personally, I had not known of the landlord's issues until after I moved in. It was more like I assumed something like this would have been brought to my attention. But I know the saying, if you assume, you make an *** out of you and me. :oops:

As for the move out date, I guesstimated. The day I posted was week 5 of the move out. The last day of Feb concluded the lease.

Having the other things explained to me, the only point of argument I have left really is why am I being charged $575 total for trash removal in two different payments? The home was not left trashed. I can't repeat this enough. I feel like I'm not being understood here. I followed the late instructions to wipe down and clean the kitchen and bathroom. I killed all the mold in the bathroom that I found. I ran a vacuum through the house. There was not that much trash left behind, the biggest pieces were a TV and a table. The only reason these were left inside were due to bad weather blocking our way (I'm not going to sit things in the street to block people). And I do not argue the charge to have these items moved out of the house to the curb for garbage.

I should add that part of the townhome "features" is that they rip out all carpeting and repaint the walls prior to new tenants. I'm still trying to find out where the money for that comes from (my bf doesn't know if its part of the costs we pay when we leave or new tenant costs...I'm sighing and beating my head right now, trust me).

Thank you again all, for the help.\

Edit: Forgot to add...I'm currently living with family, going to work debt off first so I don't get bad credit. Its just...bad everywhere and we're struggling through it. I will definitely be more thorough with landlords...this particular landlord made damn sure the rentable homes were immaculate. Its after tenants moved in she begins to ignore them and not really help them when requested. Looking at the homes they just fixed up for rent compared to ours' prior to leaving...I was kind of mad how they put so much work into a place with no people than the ones they currently have. How can you rent to someone and not take care of the ones you have first off?

Yes, I do. The letter was written on March 29th, but the post mark on the letter is April 1st. Our lease ended at the end of Feb.

The letter with instructions to move out? Or the letter which stated the amount owed to them? (They took the security deposit and we owe the balance of $706.13.)

As I said, the land lord says a lot of things and doesn't really do them. She's stated and acknowledged repairs we've needed, given us estimated times, then nothing ever happened. We felt lucky to even get a letter with instructions on what exactly she expects of us when moving out.

I know trash is expensive, I'm mostly curious as to why trash placed outside is more expensive than that left inside. And to explain: We left a few days prior to the end of the month, but we paid for the full month. Trash should have been taken care of prior to our rent being up, it was placed out where the trash collectors could get it. So I'm wondering what trash outside they could have been referencing that costs so much.

I didn't mean about the service being transferred, I just meant we called the companies up, alerted them to our moving, new address to be billed at, and we got the bill. The remainder was supposed to be paid from here, but we got the notice that we owed the landlord the money. It just confused me is all (I was worried we were being charged more fees personally by the landlord). I didn't realize they could possibly pay it or want the money on their end when we were already dealing with it on our end.

I guess you're right on the blinds. I did find some that matched the ones in question for $10 but it was a sale. :( Now I can't find it. All I can find is http://www.blindsgalore.com/products.asp?id=mini-blinds/window-blinds/ which is a nice blinds site. But going by their price, even the cheapest is still in the $20 range. I really should have fixed those myself to spare the costs when I had the chance.

As I said, yes, there was some trash left in the house due to how much snow was outside, which did not permit us to put out the trash. But it was not that much. I wiped down the walls, window sills, various surfaces with cleaning wipes. Kitchen and bathroom were wiped down. I vacuumed, though it probably wasn't the best job out there due to it being rushed at the end.

The landlord makes herself quite unavailable when you need her, especially for a walk through. I mean, though we gave her twice the amount of notice needed, and she promised to send us a letter within a week, it took her over a month to actually send the letter. And the town home office is literally next door to the home we stayed in.

The largest pieces of trash left behind inside the house was a TV and a table (just the table, not the chairs, the table could be broken down into several easy to handle pieces).

I will be writing a letter to her over this, and I have no intention of not paying the costs, especially ones I agree with. I want this mess behind me. I really do regret not taking care of the leak issues before, I should have contacted professionals to force action or something. I merely wish to reduce whats owed, but I understand very well I do owe.

The wall in the rear of our house took so much water damage the paint or whatever it is was actually bubbling from being drenched. The floor took some damage too, the rug was absorbing excess water. And we told the land lord this, she didn't seem to really care. But I'd consider that damage the start of making that house unlivable, it gives way to mold in the walls and flooring. It was really disgusting.

As for the bills, I didn't think about that. Last I checked it was unpaid (bare with me, we haven't even been moved out a month yet). I didn't even think they'd pay it then forward the bill to us, I thought we'd pay it from our new residence.

I should add that last summer we'd been considering moving out and spoke to the landlord about this (possible job offer in another state). We spoke to her then about all the things we needed to do (how much notice, steps to take, etc.) so we honestly did try to do things proper. We did give proper notice about us leaving.

We even received a letter from our landlord about the steps to take upon moving out which we followed.

We didn't up and leave. We didn't trash the place. The trash in reference were things we were unable, due to weather, to put out, and I agree in full to paying for that. Though I don't understand why we have to pay for trash that was already outside ready for the collectors to pick up.

$375 just seems a lot for trash that we ourselves packed up and put out...yet the trash left in the house costs $200?

We gave proper notice (30 days or more is the required notice), 60 days in advance. So that can't be the issue, we both sent letters of notice and spoke to the landlord about moving out.

When I spoke to the landlord about the pet fee, she specifically to my face told me it covered damages (she even pointed out the blinds as an example).

We spoke about the utilities and moved the bills with us, we knew it was going to be a late payment. Those are our payments though, my question was more why are they on this bill to us. I was worried it was a cost on top of things, but it seems to be just the bill itself, and I'm not arguing it.

While I'm not disputing all the charges for moving out, some of them just seem over the top.

I am especially not happy about the condition she's allowed the home to get into because she was not hiring maintenance to fix things we were paying for.

Can we argue a service we did not receive in terms of payment? (Things did not get fixed though we paid a monthly maintenance fee.)

Hello, recently I lived in a Townhome, and due to financial reasons, had to move out.

We received extra expenses upon moving out, most of which we believe we should not have to pay for, so I'll go into a bit more detail before asking "is this something we should be paying for, or is it unreasonable?"

First off:

~Furniture removal, garbage trash - $200.00~

-Now, I find this reasonable. Due to circumstances beyond our control (a very bad snowstorm), we were unable to transport all trash and furniture to be disposed of to the curb due to all the snow that was plowed (multiple storms + plowed onto our curb equal snow 5 feet high). I'd agree to pay this because they did need to place our trash out once they were able.

However, the landlord had previously had our garbage removal shut off (and we did not know this, because our garbage continued to be picked up and we received no notification until we called them to tell them to shut it off since we were moving.) Our neighbors, connected to our townhome, had previously moved out and the shut off time for their garbage was the same time, possibly meaning it was an honest mistake.

~Trash removal: $375~

Now, I don't get this. Its like we're being charged for the same thing twice in a row. Can anyone explain this to me? They're claiming it was left outside...which...yes, we put things on the curb to be collected by the garbage men, and the garbage cut off date should have been after this stuff was collected.

~Carpet Cleaning/Pet Deodorizing $175~

-Can they charge us for this, as they have been charging us a monthly pet fee for our cats specifically to cover damage upon move out ($25)? What were we paying them extra pet money for if its not to cover this upon moving out when they stated to us that's what the extra fee meant?

~Stove/Fridge Cleaning $75~

Now, I've kept the stove and fridge pretty much immaculate. I hate, hate, hate the idea of bad food sitting anywhere, and cooking with dirty stuff. I'd wipe down the fridge and the stove and sanitize them (stove daily, fridge every few weeks). I was constantly throwing out food before its expiration, and I never kept food out of sealed containers, so there couldn't possibly be much to clean at all.

~Water and Sewage Bill Unpaid $186.13~

-Why are they charging us this? We had the bill transferred directly to us and our new address when we had them cut off, why is our landlord demanding it when we've spoken to the companies and are handling it on our end?

~Blinds $70~

-Our cats destroyed these, which should again fall under pet damages cost cover. The blinds in need of replacing are not nearly as expensive as the bill, so I'm thinking this is labor costs more than product cost (I meant to replace them myself, as the blinds cost $10 exact duplicates, there were 3 blinds total to be replaced.)

~Key $5~

-All the keys we returned, apparently we missed the garage key. I can agree with this charge, though I thought I returned all the required keys to the landlord.

~Ceiling Fan Cleaning $35~

-These were a little dusty at best. I've wiped them down...but ceiling fans are ceiling fans, they like to pick up dust. The price to just wipe them off seems extravagant.

~Removal of Boxes in the Basement $100~

I can agree to this charge, we had some empty boxes left over. But the fact is they were empty and ready for trash, so $100 seems a touch over priced for walking 10 feet to drop them in the garbage. To repeat, I would have done this had there not been such deep snow blocking us from trash removal.

To add on to this, our landlord has shown incompetence for a long time.

Occasion 1

-Lawn

We received a notice to cut our grass, fine, we pay someone to do it every 2 weeks. The notice we received was short notice (less than 12 hours) before our landlord had it cut themselves. They wanted to charge us $50 and they only did 1/3rd of the lawn, and left all the clippings there. They also complained about our bushes. Now, we have a guy come do it, he does a great job, cuts the grass, bushes, and removes all debris from the lawn for $40 a month. We disputed this with the landlord and they dropped it as they'd given us less than 12 hours to comply. (Also, several homes had lawns twice as long as ours, but were not forced to cut their lawns to our knowledge.)

Occasion 2

-Gutter

My bf lived in the townhome a year and a half prior to myself coming to live with him. We paid monthly for maintenance. The gutter had fallen off a half of year into his time living there. He kept phoning and sending letters to the landlord about the gutter, which she acknowledged then ignored. Over time, this has caused water damage and mold to the walls, which was also acknowledged then ignored by the landlord.

Occasion 3

-Our toilet broke, the only one in the townhome, and it took two days to finally get the landlord to send someone in to repair. Their excuse was the repair man had family issues and that's why it took so long (they had only one repair man, and instead of hiring someone in his place, the entire area was left unrepaired while he was gone). To add to this, the repair man said that before him, there was no maintenance man for 6 months. Many homes were in dire need of repair, and most had residents in them.

Occasion 4

-Our heater broke, several times. A new repair man came in to fix it all three times, they responded quickly. By this time, a pipe had broken (bathroom above the kitchen) to which any time we took a shower or bath, water leaked in the kitchen (we placed a bucket under the leak when bathing). This was acknowledged and ignored by the repair man and the land lord, both whom we spoke to about it.

Occasion 5

-Our mail slot broke off, leaving a gap in our garage door. This happened in the winter months. The land lord saw it and told us they should fix it as it would cost us a bundle in heating. She stated this to us personally...months later, it was still not fixed.

So my question is: How much do we owe them? What do they owe us? We had every legal right to not pay rent (which I regret not doing) till they fixed our home and made it livable. Now they're charging us a great deal of money that some of our rent should have paid for. They deducted the security deposit from it.

My BF previously lived in this area in another townhome. He left it immaculate upon moving out and did not receive notice nor money back. We did not expect to see any back this time either, but we did not expect such a large bill for some things they claimed were paid for in our monthly rent.

Thank you in advance for any insight on this matter.